My thoughts on human vs. machine

My thoughts on human vs. machine... Keep in mind that it is 3 am and my brain has been drained by a day filled with nothing but monstrosities. I'll elaborate later on the monstrosities. I will probably come up with more detailed thoughts when I am not in a state of half-slumber...

One more thing... The theme from Terminator 3 should be playing in the background.

Where is the boundary between humans and machines? If you're at all familiar with the concept of "duck typing", then perhaps the line is even more blurry to you than the rest of us. If the machine can substitute for human, even for a relatively short period of time, does that make machine human? At least for the purposes of determining whether it has human intelligence?

(Duck typing is the concept in programming by which an object is interchangeable with any other object as long as it can run through the same code while providing a sufficiently complete interface. It is a direct application of a popular idea: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. That is, you do not try to obtain proof that you have a duck, you just observe and see that, for the limited time your observation lasted, it appeared to be a duck. It might not be a duck, but you do not care. It is present in popular programming languages like Ruby, JavaScript and Python, which I am certain, most are at least semi familiar with. Considering that Python is the prototyping language of choice of companies such as Google and JavaScript is ubiquitous on the Web, duck typing has become quite a common paradigm among programmers.)

People often arrive at a conclusion that humans are superior to animals because of their higher intelligence levels. But machines' intelligence surpasses that of a human in many cases. However... I think what sets us apart from the machines is a) self-awareness and b) creativity. A calculator exhibits intelligent properties - but it doesn't necessarily follow that it's conscious. Can a computer deviate from its script and display the answer in flowers or hugs? Doubtful, very.

Computers won't replace the human mind, because neither computer nor brain could function as tools without the consciousness of mind providing context and meaning to the information that each processes. What is mind, anyhow? The word "mind" could be partially defined as "that which gives meaning". The words "mind" and "meaning" derive from the same Indo-European root, and strangely enough, many Indo-European languages do not have a word for "mind". Translation of "mind" into French or German and retranslation back to English will give something like "soul", "spirit", or "ghost". So we possess a ghost in our machines, then. In Russian, the word "mind" is in its meaning a synonym of the word for "intelligence", however, a certain extra is implied, and that is one's awareness of one's self, which machines do not possess.

As far as the creativity goes... One can be creative according to instructions, yes, that is so. However, the instructions must be very vague and general, or the creativity will cease to be "creativity". Computers follow instructions. They do not deviate from the instructions, and in a case when they do, it isn't a positive thing. Nothing beautiful materializes as a result. Computers can only put out what has once been put in. Can you imagine your computer writing a novel?

A computer is a universal machine which can simulate any physical system including any other machine, or the software running on any other machine. If the mind can be shown to possess abilities that no machine has, or can have, then this would be evidence for the Buddhist view that the mind is non-physical.

Any machine will represent truth and falsity as discrete states or numerical values. A computer represents the truth of a statement as a single bit. For example: (and it isn't Kathy this time) TRUE = 1 and FALSE = 0.

You can also have fractional truth values if you are dealing with probabilities. The average of the two possible truth values, or 0.5. An act of observation will always resolve the coin as heads or tails. (I'll exclude the coin remaining standing on its edge to make this easier for the less inquisitive/anal friends of mine). Individual truth states can be manipulated and combined to give long chains of logical reasoning which should form the basis of artificial intelligence. But it's apparent that truth-states do not lie on a scale of 0 to 1, or even on a scale of 0 to 50. In fact they're off in another dimension. These paradoxical truth-states (known as dialetheia or dialethia) have more of a qualitative, intuitive feel to them than anything quantifiable. It seems that the human mind can access states which cannot be represented or manipulated within any machine.

And finally, the little concept called free will. Relative, I realize. However. I can end everything by jumping off a bridge. This will go against my life plan, my parents' life plan, hopefully, most of my friends' life plan, etc... Can a machine willfully and purposely go against its instructions and do the opposite of its programme on a whim? I understand that I have been programmed by lots and lots of people and efforts long before I was alive, and many contributed to my life. Nevertheless. I possess the power to change it all. I could, just to prove a point, dive in front of a fast moving train. A machine could not.

Oh, and yeah. Can machines derive pleasure from communicating with one another in a physical sense?


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